Great Barrier Island Habitat Mapping

Hi everyone,

Sometimes, we (Hannah and I) sat on the deck, drinking our morning coffee and wonder how is everyone doing? Well, how would we know if you guys NEVER post any blog? :P

Anyway, last week was hell week for Hannah - 4 exams, 3 lab reports and have to take care of the new puppy... and to make things even worse, I have to go out to sea for a couple of days for my project. One of the projects I am working on now is mapping of the underwater habitat of Great Barrier Island (GBI). GBI is 90km northeast of central Auckland. The surveys are done with an underwater camera (no diving) which is mounted on a tripod. The 45-foot boat is very new, very modern and comfortable.



The view around GBI is great with tons of sealife. We enchored in the middle of a fiord during the evenings to get away from the waves. The view in the fiord was even more incredible.

Now, my work really starts after the surveys. I have to put together satellite images and video surveys using ArcGIS.

It was delightful to get home after the surveys... spring is here... the vineyard are blooming, the trees are green and there are flowers everywhere...

Lets pretend its still July

Hey everybody!

Ok, so its been a long time coming, but its finally here. The day where I write a post on this thing, and the pictures of our new home. They are mostly on facebook because I got a bit excited and took too many, but I'll give you some other ones with stories on here and perhaps some panoramas ok?

Alright. so lets get started. In the beginning, which would be considered by linear time enthusiasts as July 10th or thereabouts, at approximately 5 am local time, we landed in New Zealand at the Auckland Airport. I was feeling cheesy so I took the classic out the plane picture which enables you to see nothing, but just believe me, its Auckland.


Later that day we went over to the island, and our very nice real estate agent met us at the ferry, and then she drove us all around and we looked at lots and lots of houses. Some of them were kinda scary as they were very old and rather moldy. But we saw one that we kinda liked and so we had sorta figured that we would end up living there.

Except.

I mentioned to Cathy (the real estate lady) that I loved houses that were described as having character. When we were still in states we spent long hours on trademe (New Zealand's version of ebay/craigslist) looking at houses, and I noticed that whenever the descriptions said that the house was full of character, it was usually one that I liked. At the time, I was only making conversation and had no idea what sort of ramifications this comment would result in.

Cathy laughed and then looked thoughtful for a moment.
"You know," she said, "I happen to have a house that is just full of character, and it will be available very soon..."

She shook her head and added, "But it doesn't come furnished at all like you wanted, and the current tenent isn't even out of it yet. If I show it to you, I know that you will want it though. Do you want to see it?"

Of course I said yes. And once we saw it, even though the drive up to it involved an extremely long steep hill, and even though the lady who lived there had stuff all willy-nilly so it was hard to see much else, and even though the house didn't even come with a fridge, we were in love. We told Cathy we needed to think about it, and we would get back to her the next day.

We didn't even make it an hour before we called her back and said we wanted it. We had the paperwork filled out by the end of the next day, and that weekend she told us we could move in. And this brings me to the second chapter of our story: Moving Day



The Saturday that we had chosen to move in was not an auspicious day. As a matter a fact, it was a gale. We heard it described as the storm of the century by several people. (As a side note though, I've now heard this multiple times about multiple storms, so I don't know how much weight I would put on that comment) Regardless, it was really windy. It was raining sideways. And we had to find furniture by that night.

We had scoped out all the garage sales occurring that weekend all around the island, and were planning on visiting them all to get furniture. We had also rented a truck. It was huge.


So here we are driving around the island in the middle of this horrible storm and there are several factors that made it even worse. First of all, they drive on the other side of the road here, so Sonny had to remember how to do that. Second of all, the roads on the island are very narrow and very verry twisty. Third, the defog on trucks windshield didn't work. All of these together added up to create this:


But we got it done. There are some more crazy stories from moving, mostly relating to a bed, and some to petrol, but this is getting really long, so they will have to wait. Ok, i will leave you with some views from my ocean-facing balcony. They are panoramas that I stitched together.

San Diego and Invertebrates

Hey guys,

A quick update from San Diego -- I'm all moved in to my adorable one-bedroom apartment in a beige three-story hexagonal building less than a mile from school. Photos of the apt will come, later, when I've comfortably feng shui'd my future couch. Most of the residents are grad students, or at least students, and everybody is friendly. There's a lot of bonding in the jacuzzi. Haven't talked to any other divers yet, though :D.

San Diego = gorgeous. The picture up above is of campus, which itself is kind of what FIT would like to look like once it gets to 3X its current size. The weather is just like Florida, with one major exception: NO HUMIDITY! It's pretty much perfect, since it gets nice and cool at night. California always smells piney to me, and here it's mixed in a bit with the sea.

A row of California palm trees at La Jolla Beach. Seriously, it's like living in the Bahamas, with 5-lane highways. Which reminds me: I have a car. Her name is Rosarita, and I love her.

Now, to the original point of this post: classes. More specifically, professors. Actually, one in particular. Watch this if you have a moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRvhlq-KEmA

That's my Chemical Ecology prof. I kind of can't wait to start reading papers for my classes... it's Microbiology heaven.

More later. Wish you all a happy start of the school year or, to those of you across the international date line, a Prosperous and Efficient September.

<3.

Nori